Butterfly & cicada walk and goat rescue

Today I went to Hillsborough for the dedication of the Pollinator Garden by the local beekeeping club. So I walked about a bit, the rain finally quit for now. First I dropped in on the Occoneechee State Preserve to look for dragonflies. Nothing special in dragonflies as they reworked(drained and installed new dams) the ponds a few years ago and recovery is not fully happened yet.  As I was walking a spotted an Eastern Pine Elfin on an ox-eyed daisy, might have been a preserve record, I'm not sure.

Left the preserve and headed the long way home, caught the Durham Garden Center before closing and picked up two dwarf spiderworts. 'Danielle' is a dwarf white spiderwort and 'Marielle' is a dwarf sky blue spiderwort. Pretty excited about getting a white spiderwort!

Drove out on Cole Mill Rd and saw a cicada cross the road at the Eno River State Park Cole Mill Access. I'd been wanting to walk the power line trail to look for butterflies it is one of my favorite butterfly watching spots. Before I got out of the car I heard waves of cicadas calling in the woods. Been wanting to take in a cicada concert for weeks. The next concert here will be in 13 years once these are done.

All these photos were taken with my Canon G11 point and shoot, left the big gun camera at home. Above is a butterfly orgy, well almost. There were 2 female Silvery Checkerspots with 3 males wanting to breed with them. If you look closely you can see all 5 butterflies on this single ox-eyed daisy. The female has the fatten abdomen in the center of the photo. Notice the more slender abdomen on the lower checkerspot it is a male and you can see slightly different wing markings too.

My first great Spangled Fritillaries this year. Usually when the white milkweed is in bloom they show up, it is in bloom. There were 4 of these fritillaries on this storm knocked down thistle when I found them. Thistle can be a butterfly magnet.

Saw 4 of these very uncommon Eastern Pine Elfins today. So far this year I have been lucky to see one on March 20th, April 17th and today May 15th. Not many times can you see any elfin during three different months. The Eastern Pine Elfin has a long spread out brood unlike the other elfins.

 Ebony Jewelwing damselfly my first one this year. And even better it let me get 2 inches from it for this photo!

The 13 year Cicada, I heard likely thousands of them up it the trees along the Eno River. One trail intersection must have had between 300-500 holes where they emerged in the mud in 6-8 foot of trail. I found the most exoskeletons  in mature ironwood trees.

These exoskeletons were on a poison ivy leaf.

Thought I let you hear the chorus of the cicada. These are called Brood XIX or the Great Southern Brood. I do recall this brood 13 years ago along the Eno River. Before these I have a memory of the 17 year cicada in Ohio Brood X or the Great Eastern Brood in 1970, it was massive at our house thousands flying everywhere, considered to be the largest brood ever recorded from what I have read.

OK now the goat rescue. We ate breakfast on the screened in porch around 8 am. We heard a goat calling non stop. Meg thought it was stuck in the fence next door. We both figured the stupid neighbors would take care of it shortly. These neighbors are the ones with the crazy loud as #$#@ peacocks that call all night. We keep our windows open whenever possible, apparently they close their windows tight. Meg was making dinner and the goat was still calling at 7pm 11 hours after we heard it in the morning. I walked through the woods and sure enough it had its head stuck in the fence just as Meg suggested. I carefully helped it get free. Some people should not be allowed to keep animals, they have donkeys, goats, ducks (no wait I think a fox got them), peacocks and chickens.

Here he is happy to be free again. Meg used to have goats and she said they get stuck in the fence fairly easily.

Counting Butterflies

Recently I had a comment on my post on the Durham Butterfly Count about how do you count butterflies? Well answering this in comments just did not seem to be the best way to answer this.

First having the knowledge to ID each and every butterfly comes with practice, a lot of practice. Some get the IDs easily others no so easy. We always have a team leader that knows the butterflies so everyone in the group does not need to be an expert. Many that come along it is their first time on a butterfly count, still they can be quite helpful and learn along the way.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Swamp Milkweed.

These guys stole the show on the Durham Butterfly Count. They were everywhere, our group tallied 394 of them. At one spot with lots of yellow composites along both sides of the road I was walking fast and counting them as I went. Just getting the ones I could see and hoping not to over or under count, it is actually estimating them. If I had moved slowly I believe they would have been more confusing to tally from mixing back and forth. Some you will always miss and others might get counted twice, so the missed ones make up for the counted twice ones. That roadside composite patch on both sides of the road for 200 yards I tallied up 130 Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. Down the street a massive roadside patch of Hercules Club I estimated 55 tigers on them.

Zebra Swallowtail on Brazilian Verbena. This verbena grows wild along our roadsides and is a big butterfly attractor.  Zebras on our previous counts have mostly tallied 1, this year 16!

Above and below is the Silvery Checkerspot. The yellow flowers above are narrow-leaved Sneezeweed. This plat is very drought tolerant and a good butterfly magnet. We walked about 3 miles in the Flat River Impoundment and probably 2 -21/2 miles of the gravel road was completely full of sneezeweed. We counted the butterflies on it as we approached it, not looking back or where we had been already. Record numbers of the Silvery Checkerspot were found this year as well.

These two butterflies, the Viceroy above and Red Admiral on Swamp Milkweed  below were a challenge to count. The impoundment has Black Willows growing in the ditches. One had to look for moving wings or butterflies flying in the willows then set binoculars on them. We would find Viceroys, Red Admirals, Question marks, Eastern Commas,  Hackberry Emperors and Tawny Emperors in the willows. I know we missed a lot of them, over counting them was not an issue in the willows.

Here is the Variegated Fritillary above on sneezeweed and Common Buckeye on a blade of grass below. Both of these can be flying all about you and your crew! Best to count them as you see them in front of you then hope they don't sneak in from behind. Buckeyes this year seem to be everywhere, normally open areas are the best places to find both of these species.

Here we have the Cloudless Sulphur above and Little Yellow below. Cloudless Sulphurs are very large and look like a pat of butter when in flight, easy to ID on the wing once you learn them.

The Little Yellow is sometimes missed on our count, it comes up from the south and might not make it here at all. We had 3 total of them on the count this year. It is small and yellow, not orange like the very common Sleepy Orange which is slightly bigger.

Well I did not get to the skippers! I bet a lot of you are glad of that. Skippers take a lot of practice to learn them and some a photo is a great idea to make sure you are right.


Next stop the Wilmington NC Butterfly Count this Saturday, I'll have to leave by 5AM to make it there by 9AM. For those of you that want to get involved with a butterfly count please check the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) for a count near you.

Western Crescents and Fritillaries

These are photos I took out in the Yosemite area (California) back in June. Given I'm an eastern US butterfly guy. Western fritillaries and crescents are very hard to ID even with good photos. Hoping some of my western butterfly friends will chime in on these IDs.

No ID for this fritillary above and below on Purple Milkweed. Any suggestions? This one was found in Maraposa County, CA along a dirt road in a very open mixed forest near a cattle ranch. It was near the county line which was unmarked and I do not have current access to my DeLorma map which Sharna still has in Yosemite..



This fritillary above and below was found inside of Groveland a small town outside of Yosemite Park. I'm stumped on where to begin IDing this one.



Fritillaries out west are very hard, I think this is a Coronis Fritillary, Speyeria coronis. This one was found along the Old Yosemite Rd where the road just ended in the woods. There was a clearing filled with clover and the road intersected 3 different ways and the road sign was laying in the woods. All the roads at this point were overgrown with trees and not passable with our rental car.

This small crescent I believe to be a Mylitta Crescent please correct me if I'm wrong?

This small crescent I believe to be a Mylitta Crescent, Phyciodes mylitta . Found along Evergreen Road in Toulomne County, CA.


Mylitta Crescent, Phyciodes mylitta again??

I think this is a Field Crescent, but western crescents can fool you especially when your from the eastern US. Correct me if I'm wrong will ya? This one was found along Evergreen Rd along the Toulomne River in Toulomne County.


Thanks to help from an western expert this is Northern Checkerspot. I found it along a mud puddle in a trashed out road inside Toulomne County, Groveland, CA.